HELIOPOLIS by James Scudamore

Book Quote:

â€śGuests would arrive in armoured 4x4s or mud spattered jeeps, tanned men with bellies and moustaches, who chatted by the pool all weekend gripping beers and caipirinhas; stunning wives on sunloungers with tinted hair and manicured nails and cosmetically enhanced bodies, rotating in the heat like rotisserie chickens.â€ť

HeliĂłpolis is actually the name of the largest favela in Sao Paulo, but for this novel the term could refer to the lives of the extremely wealthy set–people who never travel at street level, but who instead move from building to building via helicopter:

The novel begins with Ludo sleeping with his adoptive sister and sometime mistress, Melissa. Sheâ€™s now married to Ernesto, the plump well-meaning son of another wealthy Brazilian family. Apart from the money connection, itâ€™s an odd match. Ernesto, who works interminably on an ever-elusive PhD, is obsessed with the plight of Brazilâ€™s underclass, and while he interviews people for his Sisyphean project, his wife Melissa lives like a princess in a tower and spends lavishly at the most exclusive shops.

HeliĂłpolis offers fascinating insights into Brazilian life and the vast chasms between the rich and the poor, and Ludo is a bridge figure who straddles both worlds. Heâ€™s useful to his masters and yet he doesnâ€™t fit in either world–not the skyscrapers and the country estates or the fetid squalor of the favelas. Ludo fails to connect with anyone on any meaningful level. He even unintentionally manages to patronize the office cleaner, and itâ€™s through this relationship that it becomes clear that Ludo has no place in society.

HeliĂłpolis was longlisted for the 2009 Booker prize. Not that I care–the books I like never win. I liked HeliĂłpolis but it wasnâ€™t perfect. Ultimately thereâ€™s something unsatisfying with the tale. Richly evocative when it comes to locations and atmosphere, many of the characters fail to connect as living, breathing human beings, and its denouement feels somewhat contrived.

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